Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir

Thursday, June 30, 2011

About Governor Walker and his dedication to smaller government. Just saw a news scroll at the bottom of the digital weather channel my wife was watching - "as Wisconsin's smoking ban nears it's first anniversary ... Walker says he would not support a repeal".

OK, so we have a governor who campaigned on getting Wisconsin's government out of the hair of her residents, and reducing costs - and he's not in favor of letting people decide certain issues themselves.

It's looking to me like he's first and foremost a politician, and secondly, very secondly, a reformer and freedom advocate.

The laws of physics mean as little to these people as the Constitution, apparently.

50+ MPG in a "passenger car" means extremely light, extremely small, and not all that fast. Think of how something smaller than the Smart Car pictured in the article (41 MPG highway) would fare on the interstate, along with a few big trucks. Barring some miracle material, such a car will be a rolling death trap if hit by anything bigger than itself, or if it hits a stationary object.

House Republicans have started their reckless effort to undo Wall Street reform. Their agenda? Bring back the days of unrestrained excess, deception, and de-regulation of Wall Street.

One of their strategies is to choke funding to two of the agencies which are critical to the implementation and enforcement of the financial reform law, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Last week, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that "anything we can do to slow down, deter or impede their ability to engage in this kind of oppressive over-regulation which is freezing up our economy would be good for the country… The less we fund those agencies, the better America will be."

This is both an expression of Republican extreme right-wing ideology and payback to their big contributors in the financial services industry, many of whom are already working to defeat President Obama next year.

By giving generously to support House Democrats you can send a powerful message to House Republicans to let them know that we will do all we can to stop them. We are just 3 days away from the DCCC’s critical mid-year FEC fundraising reporting deadline and are in a virtual dead heat with the Republicans in the fundraising race year to date.

Not only are Republicans trying to block the funds necessary to implement critical financial reforms, they want to strangle the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. House Republicans have demanded that the bureau be run by a five-person commission; Senate Republicans have vowed that they will not confirm anyone to run it.

The GOP doesn’t just want to cripple these agencies and neuter the government’s ability to police too-big-to-fail institutions -- they want to repeal Wall Street reform altogether.

In short, they simply want to "re-deregulate" Wall St. Why? In part because the Republican attack on our financial reforms has paid off handsomely for them in the form of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

I was just looking over our files and I see you haven’t renewed your Democratic membership this cycle.

With the Federal Election Commission (FEC) deadline just days away, there has never been a more critical time to show your support for President Obama’s agenda and our mission to re-take the House from Tea Party Republicans.

Remember, all you need to do to update your DCCC membership is make a contribution to support House Democrats at http://dccc.org/renew.

We don’t have the Koch Brothers or right-wing secret money. We rely on your support - more than 75% of our contributions come from individual memberships like yours. This midyear FEC report is the permanent record of who was there to build our campaign from the beginning -- you should be part of it.

P.S. If you've already contributed this year, we apologize for sending you this email in error. Please email us at dccc@dccc.org to let us know about your previous gift and we'll update our files accordingly.

Contributions or gifts to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are not tax deductible.

It's not perfect, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us to fix the flaws - especially the mandatory licensing if you want to carry concealed, but it's a whole lot better that what we had before. The permit does result in reciprocity with other CCH states, at least, and recognizes most other state's permits.

Friday, June 17, 2011

So far, on reading, it looks pretty good. It appears we will be able to not worry about printing or a gun flashing when you move, as (as I interpret it, not being a lawyer!) once you have the permit, you can carry open or concealed. Also, you can go through a school zone with a gun legally, now.

Employers cannot prohibit employees from keeping a gun in their vehicles.

No mention of the permitting process, or costs. Got to find that stuff.

Gotta get confirmation on how motorcycle carry will be treated, and if the removal of the ban on carrying a loaded handgun in a car applies only to people with CC permits...

Sunday, June 12, 2011

As he has made obvious lately, Governor Walker is sidling away from his campaign promises to reduce Wisconsin's government, by saying he expects any concealed carry bill reaching his desk to require licensing and registration.

So, my email:
++++++++++++++
Hello,

I am writing to urge you to endorse true "Constitutional Carry" for Wisconsin, as our Constitutional rights are not subject to licensing, regulation, or infringement. Read the Second Amendment in the light of how the Founders wrote it, and you will see that any restrictions on personal arms is an infringement. Licensing a right makes it a privilege subject to revocation. Shall we license reporters next?

Any new bureaucracy in Wisconsin flies in the face of your campaign promises to get Wisconsin government under control, and will cost taxpayers more. Instead of setting up licensing and all that entails - such as records of all licensees, open to hackers and FOIA demands by "concerned citizens", why not abolish the Wisconsin "Handgun Hotline" and all of the bureaucracy it involves - after all, we are already paying the Federal Government to maintain the FBI's "E-Check" system, that Wisconsin residents must use when buying a long gun. Aside from the childish fears of certain nanny-state lovers, there is no difference between handguns and long guns.

Governor, stay true to your campaign promises and tell the Wisconsin legislature that we do not want or need more laws regulating what should not be regulated, and to modify the Concealed Carry bill to simply repeal all restrictions on carry and storage for law-abiding people. Criminals will simply ignore any new laws, as they always have done.